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| Dr Anthony Tsui leads the crew and cast to acknowledge the audience |
Staff and students staged a musical adapted from The Sound of Music on the evenings of 5 and 6 May in celebration of UIC's tenth anniversary. The shows, supported by GEO, earned popular acclaim.
Dr Anthony Tsui (Acting Associate Dean of DBM) was the director of the musical. He spoke of how the idea for the musical came up: “We wanted to present our students' talent encouraged by UIC’s liberal arts education and whole-person development. The Sound of Music was the right choice because its theme also conveys UIC's Four Points philosophy: the interrelationship between teachers, students, parents and society.”
A musical includes more than singing, dancing and acting, and to put all together requires huge efforts. “We had a Dream [production] Team to make these shows successful. All were good at their own areas and knew exactly what to do,” Dr Tsui added.
The production team included three other members: assistant director and screen editor Dr Andy Fung (CLC & RICC), music director Sandra Lau (GEO) and stage director Dr Purrie Ng (CCM).
Anthony said that Andy revised the screenplay for over 20 times to match the UIC environment. As Sandra, the campus music activity organiser, trained the performers to improve their singing skills, Purrie acted as the backbone of the stage. She made sure the crew could change scenes within two minutes. Anthony focused on a director's leadership and organisation, while managing every single detail.
He attributed the success to teamwork. “We respected and supported each other. The common goal was to bring a splendid show, so any disagreement or conflict was quickly solved with this higher goal in mind.”
“We also created what we called ‘a show within a show.’ We involved two teachers as guest talents: Jessica Steinbauer (ELC) to sing and Dr Katharina Yu (IDO) to dance.”
Dr Tsui said they have put a lot of effort in training two groups of equally good performers from various divisions since last October. These performers have also been prepared for another show next year.
His team plans to mingle Chinese and Western culture and add new elements like kung fu into their next show. “I hope one day we can perform outside UIC,” he said.
(Republished from MPRO’s UIC Beacon Issue XVI)
